McCain is left stranded

The wheels came off Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) presidential campaign yesterday as high-level staffers resigned amid infighting and acrimony.

Longtime McCain adviser and friend John Weaver, campaign manager Terry Nelson, political director Rob Jesmer and deputy campaign manager Reed Galen all resigned from the campaign yesterday.

Nelson and Weaver bowed out after becoming frustrated by incoming campaign manager Rick Davis’s constant end-runs around them to McCain, according to a campaign aide familiar with the campaign’s inner workings.

{mosads}McCain, well-known for his military service, appears to have lost his top staffers and closest confidant by failing either to institute or adhere to a chain of command within his own organization.

Davis, who has a longstanding relationship with McCain, would go to the senator directly by cell phone with his own ideas and advice, sidestepping the direction of Nelson and Weaver, the aide said.

Nelson and Weaver each “said, ‘I got better things to do. I quit,’” the aide said.

Davis, whose role as the new campaign manager was announced yesterday afternoon, was the campaign’s architect, the aide said, and was directly responsible for the “incorrect assumptions” the campaign cited when relaying its dismal second-quarter results last week.

Nelson and Weaver went on a conference call with reporters last week to report that McCain’s campaign had only $2 million in cash on hand and was forced to lay off a number of staffers after building a campaign around the faulty assumption that the senator would be able to raise $100 million this year.

Davis, the aide said, created that assumption.

Davis “told people with certainty and bravado that the campaign would raise $50 million by June 30,” the aide said.
The campaign did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

The paltry sum McCain reported last week caused most pundits to begin writing off McCain’s chances of winning the Republican nomination.

Another campaign aide said yesterday the campaign is pressing on, but added, “It’s been a difficult day.”

Weaver’s decision to leave is perhaps the most shocking departure. He has long been considered McCain’s closest and most trusted adviser, said Dan Schnur, McCain’s communications director in 2000.

Schnur said that every candidate needs someone they “absolutely” trust, and “for 10 years, John Weaver has played that role for John McCain.”

Weaver and Nelson said in a release that they still considered McCain the most qualified candidate, and McCain responded in kind, saying he regretted their decision to leave.

Jesmer and Galen stepped down later in the afternoon, after Nelson and Weaver resigned. Jesmer is a former regional political director to the Republican National Committee, and Galen was part of the Bush-Cheney 2004 team and worked for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s (R) reelection team before joining McCain.

McCain told reporters yesterday that he had long discussions with Weaver and Nelson before they offered their resignations, but he refused to disclose their reasons for leaving. He denied reports that he asked for their resignations.

McCain noted that the two would still provide advice for the campaign and that they and the senator would remain “loyal and good friends with them.”

“I’d describe the campaign as going well, and I’m very happy with it,” McCain said, adding there would be no changes in strategy for his campaign.

“This is candor and straight talk,” McCain said of his explanation for the shakeup.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Ga.), a friend and supporter of McCain’s, likened the campaign changes to the turnover of generals during a war. But Graham added that the senator would still be able to strike a chord with voters.

“Who stays and who goes is important,” Graham said. “But what’s most important is, can John resonate with the public on issues that will define his presidency? And the answer is yes.”

After the senator took a pounding from conservatives for his work on the immigration overhaul bill, the White House and GOP lawmakers were nervous that McCain would seek to bolster his campaign by siding with the growing public sentiment that the U.S. should withdraw troops from Iraq.

But following a trip to Iraq with Graham last week, McCain returned to the Senate floor yesterday to announce his continued support for Bush’s troop surge and war policy.

McCain reiterated his warning that efforts by Democrats to set firm timetables for troop withdrawals would be disastrous for the region.

“Getting out is not a solution,” McCain said on the Senate floor. “The terrorists are in it to win it. The question is: Are we?”
Anti-war activists were quick to pounce on McCain, saying he “stands alone” on Iraq and arguing that the troop surge has failed to quell sectarian violence there.

“If anyone needed more evidence John McCain’s time has passed, this is it,” a spokeswoman for the coalition Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, Moira Mack, said.

McCain, who serves as the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is the Republican manager of the defense authorization bill, a target for the Democratic presidential candidates to attach provisions designed to scale back U.S. involvement in the region. He will be in tough positions on some issues, such as a bipartisan amendment for habeas corpus rights for detainees, but will be at the forefront fighting the Democratic presidential aspirants’ plans.

While some Republicans have called for change in Bush’s war strategy, most have indicated they will wait until September when Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, briefs Congress on the status of the war.

“We all know that September is a time when this issue is going to be reopened again, and why we have to go through it again in the month of July is frankly a puzzlement to me, unless somehow politics may be a part of this debate we’re having, which I hope that it’s not,” McCain said.

Hoping to attract support from the Republican base for his backing of the war, the senator said Congress should not do anything on the defense authorization bill to change the course of the war.